A useless analysis of OS X release dates
Note: Updated and republished for 10.6.4’s release; skip it unless you really really care about all the OS X releases. Originally published on November 14th, 2005.
Below the break is a table showing all major releases of OS X, from the public beta through the latest public version, which is 10.6.4 as of June 15, 2010. Note that this release marks the 55th release of OS X (counting both major and minor versions, and skipping two ill-fated updates). Wow.
The following was culled from Apple’s support downloads page, and as such, some of the dates may be off just a bit. If you know for certain that something is incorrect, please let me know and I’ll get it fixed.
I’ve added the number of days between updates to the table. Only one entry requires explanation, and that’s the value for the 10.5 release—it’s measured from 10.4.10’s release date, as 10.4.11 actually came out after 10.5.
| Year | Month Day |
Days between |
Version | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Sep 13 | – | 10.0β | Public Beta |
| 2001 | Mar 24 | 192 | 10.0 | Cheetah |
| Apr 16 | 23 | 10.0.1 | ||
| May 8? | 22 | 10.0.2 | Released but replaced (see comments) | |
| May 9 | 1 | 10.0.3 | ||
| Jun 22 | 44 | 10.0.4 | ||
| 2001 | Sep 25 | 95 | 10.1 | Puma |
| Nov 14 | 50 | 10.1.1 | ||
| Dec 21 | 37 | 10.1.2 | ||
| 2002 | Feb 21 | 62 | 10.1.3 | |
| Apr 19 | 57 | 10.1.4 | ||
| Jun 5 | 47 | 10.1.5 | ||
| 2002 | Aug 23 | 79 | 10.2 | Jaguar |
| Sep 18 | 26 | 10.2.1 | ||
| Nov 11 | 54 | 10.2.2 | ||
| Dec 19 | 38 | 10.2.3 | ||
| 2003 | Feb 13 | 56 | 10.2.4 | |
| Apr 10 | 56 | 10.2.5 | ||
| May 6 | 26 | 10.2.6 | ||
| Aug 7? | 93 | 10.2.7 | For first-gen G5s only | |
| Oct 3 | 57 | 10.2.8 | ||
| 2003 | Oct 24 | 21 | 10.3 | Panther |
| Nov 10 | 17 | 10.3.1 | ||
| Dec 17 | 37 | 10.3.2 | ||
| Mar 15 | 89 | 10.3.3 | ||
| 2004 | May 26 | 72 | 10.3.4 | |
| Aug 9 | 75 | 10.3.5 | ||
| Nov 5 | 88 | 10.3.6 | ||
| Dec 15 | 40 | 10.3.7 | ||
| 2005 | Feb 9 | 56 | 10.3.8 | |
| Apr 15 | 65 | 10.3.9 | ||
| 2005 | Apr 29 | 14 | 10.4 | Tiger |
| May 16 | 17 | 10.4.1 | ||
| Jul 12 | 57 | 10.4.2 | ||
| Oct 31 | 111 | 10.4.3 | ||
| 2006 | Jan 10 | 71 | 10.4.4 | First Intel-capable release |
| Feb 14 | 35 | 10.4.5 | ||
| Apr 3 | 48 | 10.4.6 | ||
| Jun 27 | 85 | 10.4.7 | ||
| Sep 29 | 94 | 10.4.8 | ||
| 2007 | Mar 13 | 165 | 10.4.9 | |
| Jun 20 | 99 | 10.4.10 | ||
| Nov 14 | 147 | 10.4.11 | This ‘10′ goes to ‘11′ | |
| 2007 | Oct 26 | 128 | 10.5 | Leopard – First universal binary release |
| Nov 15 | 20 | 10.5.1 | ||
| 2008 | Feb 11 | 88 | 10.5.2 | |
| May 28 | 107 | 10.5.3 | ||
| Jun 30 | 33 | 10.5.4 | ||
| Sep 15 | 77 | 10.5.5 | ||
| Dec 15 | 91 | 10.5.6 | ||
| 2009 | May 12 | 148 | 10.5.7 | |
| Aug 5 | 85 | 10.5.8 | ||
| 2009 | Aug 28 | 23 | 10.6 | Snow Leopard – First Intel-only release |
| Sep 10 | 13 | 10.6.1 | ||
| Nov 9 | 60 | 10.6.2 | ||
| 2010 | Mar 29 | 140 | 10.6.3 | |
| Jun 15 | 78 | 10.6.4 |
Some random notes, updated from the original post:
- Starting with the Public Beta and up through 10.6.4, there have been 55 OS X releases, both major and minor. This figure excludes two potential updates–10.0.2, which as far as I can tell, was never released, and 10.2.7, which I believe was the update with the one-day lifespan. If I’m wrong about either of these, please correct me.
- As of June 15, 2010 (10.6.4’s release date), it’s been 3,562 days since the Public Beta was released. So on average, we’ve seen some sort of update about every 64.7 days.
- The shortest time period between any two releases is 13 days, which is how quickly 10.6.1 came out after the 10.6 Snow Leopard release.
- The longest time period between any two minor releases is 165 days, which was how long we waited for the 10.4.8 -> 10.4.9 update.
- Here’s a list of release counts by version number:
- Public Beta: 1 release
- 10.0: 5 releases
- 10.1: 6 releases
- 10.2: 9 releases
- 10.3: 10 releases
- 10.4: 12 releases
- 10.5: 9 releases
- 10.6: 5 releases and counting
I warned you it was useless…perhaps not completely boring, but useless!
November 14th, 2005 at 3:27 pm
Nice tables! :)
The interesting question for me is, how many bug fixes/features did each of these releases contain over the previous ones?
November 14th, 2005 at 3:54 pm
10.2.7 was available only on certain new models shipping late Summer 2003 – Fall 2003. I don’t believe it was available as a seperate download.
-DaMacGuy
November 14th, 2005 at 4:29 pm
Ah, that’s right — I think it was for the first-gen G5s. I’ve changed the note on the table to indicate that…
Thanks;
-rob.
November 14th, 2005 at 5:19 pm
Your table doesn’t have 10.0.4 in it, which i am almost certain existed. I think it came out in late June 2001.
November 14th, 2005 at 5:36 pm
Sorry, that was an editing oversight — it’s in there now, and yea, it was June 22, 2001. It *was* included in all the other analyses, though (total releases, releases by month, etc.). I just missed it putting the table together.
Thanks;
-rob.
November 17th, 2005 at 6:39 pm
There was at least one re-release (I forget which). It probably isn’t even listed on the download section as the first release had some major problems (hence the immediate re-release). And I hate to point it out, but you put ” ‘to minor’ ” instead of ” ‘two minor’ ” on the third bullet.
November 17th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
Actually, ‘to minor’ is what I meant to write — as in if you only count updates that went to minor version numbers, instead of to major version numbers…
-rob.
January 9th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
I had put together a similar table, but I also had a weighted average of all the time in between releases. The idea being that it might give me some indication for an educated guess on how long it will be before the next release. I had a % accuracy of all my numbers and a projected time span for the next minor release. About numbers, statistics and Excel… I thought I was the only one ;) Recently I started focusing all that energy and effort on stocks (something useful, and something that can make me money!). Keep up all the good work on the Robservatory. I enjoy reading what you have to say.
January 17th, 2006 at 8:25 am
When will OS11 be seen ……
January 23rd, 2006 at 5:35 pm
i was just wondering if anyone could help me, this probably isn’t the right place to ask but you all seem pretty smart and i am technologically retarded so, my dilema… i need to upgrade my os x (currrently 10.2.8) but i can’t download anything higher than 10.3 if i don’t already have 10.3, which i have been looking for frantically but havent been able to find anywhere. does it exist for me to download? is it that my system will not be able to take it anyway? i don’t know what to do now but i am quickly slipping into technological redundancy as i need to download things which require a better os. any help would be greatly appreciated. thankyou.
January 23rd, 2006 at 5:44 pm
10.3 is a purchase upgrade from 10.2.8. At this point, your best bet is to just jump to 10.4, also a purchase-only upgrade.
And for future reference, you’ll get much better help from forums such as those at macosxhints (http://forums.macosxhints.com) and Macworld.
-rob.
January 30th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
I’d say Panther had 9 releases, not 8. ;)
January 30th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Hmm. I said it had 10, and that’s still what I get to based on the table above. What am I missing … or counting twice, as it may be?
-rob.
February 16th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
[...] One of the things included in the recent 10.4.5 update (and yes, I’ve already updated the OS X release dates chart) was a security update for the kernel. Specifically, this update fixed the following exploit: A malicious local user may trigger a system crash by invoking an undocumented system call. This update addresses the issue by removing the system call from the kernel. [...]
April 4th, 2006 at 1:54 am
Rob,
Thanks, just the information I needed!
Are you going to update this now that 10.4.5 and 10.4.6 have been released? If not, do you know anyone else who does? E.g. Juz10Mac pointed out that he made some prognosis stuff, but didn’t leave a URL (shame on you, Justin!).
April 21st, 2006 at 5:21 pm
You list 10.0.2 as “never released”, but in fact it was. I’m having trouble finding the exact date, but I’m pretty sure it was the 1st of April 2001 (I can find news references to in from April 2nd, backing up that date).
The reason you’re not finding it in the KBase is that, for some unknown reason, Apple all but erased its existance when 10.0.3 (which only makes minor changes from .0.2) shipped; although Software Update would in fact produce an incrimental updater, the 10.0.3 update completely replaced every trace of the 10.0.2 one on Apple’s site.
I remember there being some confusion as to why Apple had done this, and here’s an article Google dug up for me that goes into great detail about it:
http://www.macjournals.com/special/weekly_mystery_update.html
10.0.2 was real, though, I’m almost certain I remember installing it, and there were products (initial OSX Cro-mag Rally beta, for example) that required it.
June 27th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
#16: Thanks for the clarification; I updated the comments section to refer to the version as released then replaced.
-rob.
June 28th, 2006 at 7:48 am
Nice job.
October 4th, 2006 at 9:37 am
I always enjoy looking the update saga over every time you revisit it. THX.
October 4th, 2006 at 11:53 am
What I’d like to know is the total elapsed time from when Apple starts a Major release such as 10.5 to when they actually release it for Public retail purchase. I suspect its around 2 or 3 years.
March 13th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
The reason you’re seeing more minor releases is the time between the major ones is increasing. If you do the maths the number of minor releases for all versions work out very similar: (ignoring actual release dates) for Puma it worked out to be a minor release every 46 days, for Jaguar 55, for Panther 53, and Tiger 55.
The release times are: Cheetah to Puma 185 days, to Jaguar 332, to Panther 427, to Tiger 553. As of today, Leopard’s at 684…
July 5th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
10.4.3 was the first Universal release… The first Intel iMacs shipped with 10.4.3
July 5th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
I don’t think that’s correct: the iMac was the first Intel Mac, introduced in January of 2006, and it shipped with 10.4.4.
I don’t think any Intel Macs existed before January 2006, and 10.4.3 came out in the fall of 2005.
-rob.
November 13th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Actually, 10.5 is the first universal binary. Previous installs of the OS were either PPC or x86 separately. I would call 10.4.4 (10.4.3?) the first public release of an x86 build of the OS.
November 14th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
bdog: Correct you are; I changed the label on 10.4.4 and gave the Universal sticker to 10.5.
Of course, 10.4.11 coming out after 10.5 messes up the sorted-on-date view of the table, but I think it makes more sense to keep the OS releases togeter. (Hopefully there’s not a 10.4.12 coming.)
-rob.
November 15th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Rob: I noticed that you noted that 10.5.1 removes the “blue screen Windows sharing icon”. I can still find the same icon resource at the same location: /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/public.generic-pc.icns .
Or are you saying the resource might be still there, but the Finder doesn’t use it when displaying Windows shares anymore? If so, what does it use now?
November 15th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Hmm, my bad, I think. I was looking at GenericPCIcon.icns, which is a gray version of the Windows diamond logo. The public file is still there. I wonder which will get used (I don’t have a PC to connect to).
For now, I’ve taken the note out.
-rob.
November 16th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Windows PC icon for Network environment window is the same in 10.5.1 as it was in 10.5, i.e. it’s a beautifully rendered old-fashioned CRT monitor with BSOD image. It looks especially funny along with great Mac icons, which correspond to real Mac hardware (if it runs Leopard). So, one may judge who’s running Leopard on the LAN by their icons amongst others.
January 7th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Okay, I have crunched numbers in this thread. I have read the bones. I prognosticate uselessly! Feb 09 will bring a release that could be dubbed OS11.
June 1st, 2010 at 3:47 pm
I run a plastic cards company and we use macs for everything. We have top end mac pros and macbook pros running snow leopard and some older machines (I cant bare to get rid of them) G5 power macs and G4 power books that run leopard.
I find that with snow leopard, apple mail is much nippier than it was on leopard but in general, a 8 core mac pro – feels sluggish.
I love using macs and will never go back to using pc’s but they just don’t seem to have any speed about them these days.
I remember many many years ago when I bought my 1st G4 powerbook, it was great and speed wasn’t an issue but now, installed with the most upto date OSX that will run on it, it is rather sluggish to say the least.